“All without a lick of egotism,” I snark.
His throat bobs in a silent chuckle. “It’s all false-bravado, trust me. I only get this way around gorgeous humans with whom I’m trying to woo.”
I feel my cheeks heat, and he grins bigger—imperfect, yet dazzlingly white, teeth on display. God, I’d love to know if he comes by those naturally, or if he has some brand of whitening strips he swears by. “Do you find yourself trying to woo many people?”
“No, not at all, actually,” he answers quickly. “However, there has been this one woman, who I keep bumping into at all of my appointments, that keeps seeing me at my most vulnerable moments. And yetshe still invites me to go grab coffee with her afterwards, it’s the wildest thing—it’s almost as if I haven’t scared her off or something. It seems as though she’s given me hope for dating again, when I least expected it.”
He winks, crooking his elbow out for me to link into. When I do, he starts guiding me out to the edge of the breakwater, helping me up onto the first of many large, square blocks of granite that form the nearly two mile path that juts out into Ternbay Harbor. At the end is Neville Beacon, a smaller lighthouse in comparison to Stormhaven Light, which stands on a craggy island further off shore.
There’s a slight breeze in the air, which sends a wave of goosebumps traveling up my arms, since I’m only in a tank top. I really didn’t think of how the breeze is out over the ocean when I shed my cardigan in the car. Without missing a beat, Caleb unzips the hoodie he showed up wearing, and drapes it over my shoulders.
And it smells fuckingamazing.
“Are you sureyou’renot going to be cold without this?” I ask him, grasping at the edges and burrowing into it.
He grins. “Positive. I may have grown up inland, but I spent every summer here in Ternbay. I know how it gets out here on the water. I mainly wore the thing hoping it would wind up on you by the end of the evening anyway. It’s a good look, you in my hoodie.”
We continue hopping rock-to-rock in a comfortable silence until we’re about three-quarters of the way out, and that’s when he pulls us aside so we can sit on one of the benches that are bolted to the stones. “See that cottage back there?” He points to a property a ways up the coastline.
I nod.
“That’s my place. I told you I didn’t live far from here.”
“Oh! That looks so cute! You mentioned you spent summers up here. Is that where you spent them?”
He nods. “Yes. I bought the place from my parents. Now that my sister and I are all grown, they have turned into snowbirds and had no use for the place. It’s perfect though. When I wanted to escape the memories in the place Aaron, my husband, and I shared together in Cumberland, I simply recalled where I had some of the best childhood memories. I wanted Cameron to have those experiences as well.”
“Who’s Cameron?”
“Oh, sorry. I thought I’d brought him up before, but I guess not. He’s my son,” Caleb explains, beaming proudly. “He was a part of the package deal when me and Aaron started dating. The same day Aaron and I got married, I signed the adoption paperwork to make us official as well.”
I give him a soft smile. “That’s so sweet! I probably should mention that I also have a son. He’s my whole world,” I admit, unwilling to stifle my own cheesy grin as I gush over my boy. “He’s made me the woman I am today.” Being quite protective of Brody, that’s all I’m willing to divulge to Caleb at this time.
He nods. “Cameron’s sixteen now, starting to spread his wings a little. He seems to like it here. Adjusting well and all that.”
“I imagine he took the death of his father hard. He was, what, twelve when it happened?”
Caleb bites his lip. He looks like he’s warring with himself over how to respond as he gazes out over the breakwater, studying the waves lapping against the granite stones. Finally, he signs, “Aaron didn’t die.”
My brows knit. “Oh. But I thought—”
He raises his hands, cutting me off. “He suffered from an”—he pauses to finger spell A-N-O-X-I-C, then continues—“brain injury. He’s alive, but he’s never been the same Aaron,nor will he ever be, I don’t think. He’s in a persistent vegetative state, they call it, totally dependent on caregivers, per the last update I was able to get from one of the nurses I was able to text with. That was over a year ago.”
“You don’t have any contact with his caregivers anymore?” I ask, perplexed.
“I was still recovering myself when his parents sued me for his POA, citing that I was too reckless—since I was the one who landed him in the hospital in the first place—to be able to exercise good medical judgement for him. Have you ever tried to go to court and not be able to speak? Lack of decent court appointed lawyers and an even bigger deficit of interpreters are giant barriers…”
“Oh, no. Caleb, I’m so sorry…”
“Needless to say, they won that case. They also, as his POA’s, signed the divorce papers on his behalf before allowing me no contact with their in-home nursing staff. And it's not like I can just drop by their house for a visit, either. They tried to fight me for Cam too, but luckily they had no case there. I had already adopted him.”
“Caleb, I’ve gotta say, they sound like assholes.”
He huffs a breath out through his nostrils. “It’s all my fault, I suppose. I was the one stupid enough to plan that weekend getaway for our first wedding anniversary. He wasn’t as ready as I’d thought he was for such an adventure. ”
“You couldn’t have known,” I tell him, wiping a stray tear off his cheek.
Gosh, I hate that I'm even thinking this right now because it seems less than sympathetic, but how endearing is it for a man to be so unashamed to cry? To not be so, I don't know, unguarded about showing their emotions? I mean, it's terrible that he had to go through such trauma, but—dare I say, it's a little comforting to know that I'm not the only one here with a fucked up past?
